SWISS, Business Class – Airbus A 220-300: Zürich to Budapest

Introduction

I’m on my way to Budapest to attend a language testing conference. The evening before my flight I try to check in on the SWISS app, but for some reason it’s not working. After several failed attempts I go to the Lufthansa app and try there, and this time it works. But I can’t download the boarding pass from the link I received by SMS. The next morning I try again on both the SWISS and Lufthansa apps, but no. Not working. I guess it makes no difference, seeing as I’ll be checking in a suitcase and will need to pass by a counter anyway. But you do wonder.

Check-in

Zürich airport is surprisingly busy when I get there at 10h45. In check-in 3 SWISS has installed self-service baggage drop counters, which seem to be rather popular, judging by the length of the queue. Business Class passengers have their own dedicated lane, which leads to two womanned counters for checking in the old-fashioned way.

From check-in I head straight to security, figuring there’s likely to be a queue there too. Which there is. However, it moves quickly and the wait there is really no more than about seven minutes in the priority lane.

The lounge

The lounge looks quiet enough from the outside, so I decide to give it a try. Uhm, yeah. No. Inside, the place is crawling with disgruntled looking business men and women. All of them look as though they’d much rather be somewhere else. And given the size of the queue for the buffet, I can’t really blame them! Where are all these people going?

So I make a u turn and exit the lounge from where I came in. But I’m still hungry. I check out the café at the beginning of the A pier, but they’re actually asking CHF7.80 for a rather small salami sandwich with some wilted looking lettuce and a few slices of salami. I refuse to pay that kind of money for a simple bloody salami sandwich. So I guess I’m doomed. My faith rests now in the hands of SWISS. My only hope now is that they won’t serve up one of their odd concotions, or that the crew won’t have mistakenly already served all the Business Class meals, as was the case on my last flight from Brussels back to Zürich.

Boarding

My aircraft arrived from Palma de Mallorca and is running just a few minutes late. Instead of at 11h55, boarding will now begin at 12h05. Seeing as I’m seated up front, I might as well wait for everybody else to board first. So I head for the window to admire the elegant Airbus A 220-300 that will be carrying me to Budapest this afternoon. It really is such a nice aircraft!

The cabin

Originally I’m on 3A. However, once boarding is completed, the twin seats on rows 1 and 2 are still empty, so I move forward to 2A so the guy on 2D can take my seat to be closer to his wife and kid on 4B and 4A. There are six rows of Business Class, and with me there are eleven passengers in the Business Class cabin. Which is a lot more than I had expected.

Row 2 on the A 220 is excellent. The seat pitch is very good and because you have the seat next to you empty, you needn’t worry about finding a place to store your bag if the overhead bins are full.

We take off from runway 28. The SID takes us in a southwesterly direction, before bringing us back to fly parallel to the departing runway, heading in the opposite direction.

Our routing takes us past lake Constance and further in an easterly direction into Austria.

It’s a lovely day here in Switzerland. However, as we progress east the weather gradually deteriorates. By the time we land in Budapest it’s overcast and slightly fresher than Zürich.

The meal

The meal is surprisingly not bad. It consists of some Asian-style noodles with a sesame oil dressing, some veg and two slices of smoked tuna. It’s a very small dish, but then again the flight is only slightly over one hour.

With that there is a small plate with two pieces of cheese. I’d say a Camembert and an Appenzeller. But I’m not sure.

For dessert is something that I think should be Tiramisu, but is essentially small pieces of soggy cantucci on gelatine with coffee. Meh…

And to finish the meal: a coffee.

The crew

The crew on this flight are friendly. They’re also totally with the birds. When they start the service, they had the bread basked on the trolley, but obviously forget to ask passengers if they’d like a bread roll. The male flight attendant plonks down my tray and moves on. So I ask him, in English, if I could have a bread roll for the cheese. First, he replies: “Es Brötli?”. He then uses the tongs to grab a roll from the basket, and then promptly places it on my tray so that it immediately rolls off and lands on the floor before either one of us can catch it. So then he asks me if I’m okay with that, or if I’d like another one. It’s really on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I’m not in the habit of eating bread rolls that have been hand picked off the seedy carpets of commercial airliners. But I let it go and just ask for a new Brötli.

But I don’t know what it is with this guy and his “Brötli”. Because after my row he continues asking all the passengers “would you like es Brötli?”. I don’t know if he thinks he’s giving the service a bit of Swissness, because honestly, it’s just weird.

Oh yes, and in case you’re wondering, there is no SWISS chocolate at the end of the flight for the Business Class passengers. I don’t know if the crew just forget, or if Business Class passengers no longer get a chocolate because they were treated to coffee flavoured gelatine. Such a treat…!

Arrival

Despite our slightly delayed departure form Zürich, we still manage to land in Budapest on time. We come to a stop next to my friends in blue. Passengers disembark via an airbridge. However, at the other end of the airbridge we are directed to go downstairs to board a bus which then drives us to the arrivals hall. I have no idea what all that is about.

The luggage doesn’t take much time to arrive and then I’m already on my way to Budapest on the 100E bus.